settlement system

The article is a result of an analytical research on development of relations between the
city and suburban area. An attempt to define main factors that may be included into a future
strategy of balanced development and to avoid a number of problems in the organization of group
forms of settlement in the big cities' influence zone. The decentralization processes in the
governance system constitute the social and economic potential for creation of a system of
common interests in development, and not for destruction of both cities and suburban area.

The concept of forming a system of natural components at the regional level (the natural frame) has been suggested in the article. Such a system is complementary to a settlement system and provides a balanced development of urban planning systems. The natural frame as a system of poorly developed areas existed in all the historical periods of settlement, its decline being caused by industrialization.